Got to love chilli for breakfast (except if you're me)

7th August, 9:30am
Ha! Couldn't get to the internet to find my email with address & directions to the Riverside Hotel, so I was lying here slightly comatose after waking up too early... then a brainwave hit. The phone book is in English. Now have address and am getting out of here!

11am
So I'm at the Riverside Bangkok Hotel now, with a balcomy overlooking the pool & river... reclining in seriously stylish decor wondering where to head off to after my room service arrives. Felt very guilty for not speaking any Thai -- I got passed around 3 people before they deciphered that I was trying to order a chicken sandwich. It's weird, in Europe I always know at least a little bit of the language or can kind of work it out. Here it's really hard.
This room cost absolutely bugger all and yet it is really well done. The air conditioning fools you, and the climate seems so temperate... until you step out onto the balcony and the smells and heat andall of it just hits you. I stood there watching a little boy teaching his younger brother how to dive in the pool below and felt so calm. I don't mind humidity like that... as long as I live somewhere with airconditioning. It's great.

Across the river there are loads of rickety little shanties on stilts. There is such an amazing disparity in wealth distribution here (did I use the right words? I think so. Sometimes I'm not sure if the words I use in my head actually mean what I think they mean!). Hmm, how to ruin a deep observation with internal dialogue!

There's a little wooden patio thing down by the pool, with palm trees overlooking the river. Am totally starving right now, but I'll go and have a look before I go to Wat Pho and do my tourist thang. Feel like such a classic Westerner abroad. I'm not used to doing it in this much style sans backpack, Interrail ticket and travelling partner. With 2 instruments and a full suitcase from Oz I had to stay somewhere a bit pricier than Khao San Road though...

I love Thai writing. It looks so unique. All these signs everywhere and I have no idea what they say. Sometimes the street signs have roman alphabet translations under them, but sometimes they don't.

As we drove in the taxi to this hotel, literally about every 5 seconds there was a perfect film frame. Continuing with the theme of viewing my life as if it's a film I keep seeing these moments everywhere... these shots: a toddler crouching on a traffic island oblivious to the traffic mayhem surrounding him, playing with a wooden lobster skeleton... the huge LED countdowns they have next to traffic lights to say how many seconds there is until the light turns green.... scary looking policemen with machine guns eyeballing you as you drive past... a tuk tuk laden with a full tray of kebabs on the front of it screaming down the middle of 2 traffic lanes at 60km per hour... rickety shanty communities next to the bridge and a homeless woman sleeping under the motorway flyover in the only bit of shade.

Life is just so damn interesting. Don't you think?